2016 New Year's Eve - Part1

It was kind of a last minute decision to spend the New Year's Eve in Singapore. We were hoping to stay in NZ for a little bit longer but in the end the kids and I decided to fly back with Matthew.

We had two invitations to celebrate the last day of 2016. With our Japanese friends in a traditional Japanese way and a big party at Meisha and Patricks' new apartment. Matthew was in Osaka until 10pm that night (lucky he made it back before midnight!) so the kids and I went to Hiroko & Kentaro's place without him.

In Japan we watch a singing show called "Khaki"on TV on New Year Eve,which means "Red and White". All the popular singers were divided into two teams depending on their gender - female singers are in team red and the male singers in white. And we just watch and sing along to the songs for 5 hours or so. Sounds strange but it is good entertainment for all the generations.

Oh my!! the kids were so excited when PPAP - the Japanese comedian who went wild on Youtube this year came on and performed. 

We cooked some takoyaki on the table cooker for dinner. 

The last photo of the kids from 2016 - Happy New Year everyone! 

I took our kids back to our place before I had to get ready to go to M&P's place. Once the kids were settled I left them with our helper Gini then rushed to the other party. I had lots of catch up drinks to do! I spent 2 hours there before popping back to our house to see Matthew arriving. We had to take the traditional Japanese New Years Eve food that Matthew brought back from Osaka to the Japanese party - buck wheat noodles (Lucky we all live so close!) 

It was very nice Matthew got to see our Japanese friends end enjoy the countdown. Japan is one hour ahead of Singapore so we could watch all the countdown happening on the Japanese TV show.
Thank you Hiroko and Kentaro for hosting such a fun evening. I'm sure we will be having even more parties together next year!